[Still Shipping] -- And now we've come to the final flashback of 2025. There are so many albums that debuted 40 years ago that I've barely scratched the full catalog. But don't worry: It's not like I'm going to try to cover everything I missed in this one post. No, in honor of the current holiday season, and my love of progressive pop, I'm celebrating the 40th anniversary of Jon Anderson's fourth solo album, 3 Ships.
I have not been able to definitively nail down the release date for this solo outing by the lead singer of Yes. Wikipedia cites the release date as November 18, 1985. Sites like AOTY and AllMusic use December 1985, while several others more enigmatically and simply say the album was released in 1985. And, as it was intended as a Christmas release, I feel pretty save in declaring that the album has reached the status of being 40 years old by now.
The album title is a nod to the English Christmas carol, "I Saw Three Ships". As such, "3 Ships" is one of five traditional carols included on the album, but it is the only one to receive the official MTV Christmas Video treatment. The other songs are all Jon Anderson originals except for "Easier Said Than Done", which was written by Vangelis. The Vangelis tune and "How It Hits You" were the lone singles, with only the former charting, and even then only in the UK and the Netherlands.
Aside from the Holiday Card Pack, Jon Anderson Special Edition of the album, this was kind of a "Christmas album incognito" with only the red and green stripe on the back cover giving any hint of Christmas trappings [Dave Connelly, AllMusic]. In fact, if not for my prog rock and holiday music loving father, and my own interest in the band Yes, this album would have completely missed my radar back in the mid-1980s. And it seems many a critic and music fan did take a pass on it.
3 Ships received largely negative reviews in 1985, including a one-star rating in Sounds magazine. Retroactively, AllMusic directed fans "to let Three Ships sail by." Biggest complaints seem to be that the arrangements, particularly the synths, overwhelm Anderson's voice. As a fan of Anderson, and as someone willing to give a person a pass for attempting to stretch a bit, I find the album quite charming. And it still gets a place in my large collection of holiday-themed records. Maybe you'll set sail with it as will.
Oh, and please note that what appear to be time links in the embedded YouTube video are simply the track durations given the hyperlink treatment, so you cannot use them to jump from track to track. Unfortunately, I could not find a playlist that included all 13 tracks from the album. But at least this video does include all 13 tracks as well as some liner note info. Enjoy!
Flashback: 3 Ships (December 1985)
And that's all till next week. Dedicated 80s-philes can find more flashbacks in the Prophet or Madman archives or via Bookended's 80s Flashback tag. As always, your comments are welcome on today's, or any other, flashback post. And if you like what I'm doing here, please share the link with your friends. If, however, you don't like the flashback, feel free to share it with your enemies.
See you in seven!
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